The U.S. Middle East Peace Plan?

by Bassam Tawil • November 13, 2017 at 5:00 am

No American or European on the face of this earth could force a Palestinian leader to sign a peace treaty with Israel that would be rejected by an overwhelming majority of his people.
Trump's "ultimate solution" may result in some Arab countries signing peace treaties with Israel. These countries anyway have no real conflict with Israel. Why should there not be peace between Israel and Kuwait? Why should there not be peace between Israel and Oman? Do any of the Arab countries have a territorial dispute with Israel? The only "problem" the Arab countries have with Israel is the one concerning the Palestinians.
The question remains: how will the Saudis and the rest of the international community respond to ongoing Palestinian rejectionism and intransigence?

Last week, the Saudis unexpectedly summoned Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to Riyadh for talks on Trump's "ultimate solution" for the Israeli-Arab conflict. Abbas was reportedly told that he had no choice but to accept the plan or resign. Pictured: Abbas on a previous visit to Saudi Arabia, on February 23, 2015, meeting with Saudi King Salman. (Photo by Thaer Ghanaim/PPO via Getty Images)

Who said that Palestinians have no respect for Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab countries? They do.

Palestinians have respect for the money of their Arab brethren. The respect they lack is for the heads of the Arab states, and the regimes and royal families there.

It is important to take this into consideration in light of the growing talk about Saudi Arabia's effort to help the Trump Administration market a comprehensive peace plan for the Middle East, the details of which remain beguilingly mysterious.

Last week, the Saudis unexpectedly summoned Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas to Riyadh for talks on Trump's "ultimate solution" for the Israeli-Arab conflict, reportedly being promoted by Jared Kushner.

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U.S. Military: More Fake News from the New York Times

by Peter Huessy • November 13, 2017 at 4:00 am

While it was true, for example, that the Soviets under SALT II had to dismantle many missiles, a point the New York Times emphasized, what was also true was that the remaining silos under the terms of the treaty became the homes of new, vastly more powerful missiles with far more warheads.
President Reagan pursued a strategy of peace through strength and building a strong nuclear deterrent. While simultaneously seeking major arms reductions, he modernized what was to be kept. He then in 1983 added the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), to enhance further the U.S. deterrent capability and undermine the Soviet push for first-strike threats. The Soviets had no diplomatic answer to nuclear reductions and could not economically match U.S. modernization.
Even at such low levels, the U.S. deterrent holds at risk those military assets most important to our adversaries, the destruction of which would cripple them if they attacked the United States first. Radically changing this successful formula, as the Times wants the U.S. to do, would be a reckless, dangerous mistake.

A Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile in its silo in Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, circa 1980. (Image source: U.S. Department of Defense)

The New York Times appears convinced the United States has plans to hurl 4000 nuclear warheads at Russian cities in the event deterrence breaks down, a retaliatory threat they claim is far beyond what is needed to keep the peace. Instead, they call for a unilateral cut in our nuclear force to roughly 1000.

For some reason, the Times did not get the memo some half-century ago that the United States deterrent policy does not target an adversary's cities. Nor are the number of warheads in the American deployed nuclear arsenal anywhere near the 4000 claimed by the Times.

They were reduced by half that number in 2002 under the Moscow Treaty, and to even lower by the 2010 New START Treaty.

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